Population Down, Public Jobs Way Up

The Trenton crowd insists government has been reduced as much as it can be and only tax and fee hikes are left to balance the budget. That so? Nearly 60,000 local and state jobs were added in the first half of the decade, an increase of more than 11 percent. The population increased 3.6 percent and private employment was down 4 percent over the same period. It’s time public trough-swillers stopped playing games. We don’t need more taxes. We need less government.

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About Bob Ingle

Bob Ingle is Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey newspapers and co-author of The New York Times' Best Seller, "The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption" and "Chris Christie: The Inside Story Of His Rise To Power". He has won numerous journalism awards and is often a news analyst on radio and television. Twitter @ bobingle99.

9 Responses to Population Down, Public Jobs Way Up

Let’s shut the thing down for a month or two and find out what we really need, and save $4 billion while we’re at it.

If the government is shut down, do we have to pay sales tax and income tax? I’m sure the answer will be yes, but it would be an interesting argument.

The casino industry should take the state to federal court and get a ruling to keep them operating. It would seem to me that us tax payers could end up paying for a big lawsuit from the employees and shareholders of the casinos

BOB POSTED: The Trenton crowd insists government has been reduced as much as it can be….(yet) Nearly 60,000 local and state jobs were added in the first half of the decade, an increase of more than 11 percent. The population increased 3.6 percent and private employment was down 4 percent over the same period.

REPLY: You say 60,000 local and state jobs were added to the gov’t payroll.

But how many actual bodies are in the jobs?

Putting phantom employees on the public payroll to siphon off tax dollars is an easy scam to pull off for the conniving politicians jam-packed across our state.

Another way to work the scam is to have these “employees” listed at agencies with bloated budgets that use phony line item accounting tricks, listing phantom vendors, phony consultants, faked administrative costs and legal fees, to skim off government funds.

Other schemes to facilitate government fraud may include:

1. Allowing one person control over all of an agency’s accounting functions.

2. Requiring only one signature on an agency’s bank checks.

3. Utilizing pre-signed bank checks.

4. Using hidden bank accounts and slush funds to keep the actual financial position of government entities secret.

TRENTON — The leader of an anti-tax group plans to request ethics investigations today to find out whether three Democrats on the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee have steered grants to their employers.

Steve Lonegan, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of Americans for Prosperity, said that he plans to seek investigations of Sens. Wayne Bryant, D-Camden, Bernard Kenny Jr., D-Hudson, and Joseph Coniglio, D-Bergen, by the Joint Committee on Ethical Standards this morning. He planned to announce the filings shortly after at a news conference outside the Assembly budget committee’s morning hearing.

The complaints question how the state sent grants from a fund slated for property tax assistance and community development to hospitals, municipalities and universities that employ the lawmakers over the past two years.

The complaints allege that: $6.2 million went to the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Rutgers University, Lawnside and the Camden Redevelopment Agency. Bryant, chairman of the Senate budget committee, received salaries from the universities, and his law firm represents Lawnside and the redevelopment agency. Bryant has resigned from his post at UMDNJ, and is already under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the situation there.

More than $1 million went to Hoboken, which is a client of Kenny’s law firm. Kenny also serves on the Joint Committee on Ethical Standards.

Hackensack University Medical Center, which employs Coniglio as a plumbing consultant for $5,000 per month, received a $1.1 million grant.

None of the senators could be reached for comment Tuesday evening. Jim Manion, spokesman for the Senate Democrats, said he wouldn’t comment until he discussed the matter with them.

“I don’t know if these particular legislators personally put those line items in the budget, but we want to know how they got there,” Lonegan said. “Obviously, money benefited their employers and eventually themselves. This is the reason taxes are going up in New Jersey.”

Lonegan, the mayor of Bogota and an unsuccessful candidate last year for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, said he has similar accusations ready to go involving 33 other lawmakers he will soon file.

Lonegan said he hadn’t found any such instance involving a Republican. “If Republicans have done this, they will get ethics complaints, too,” Lonegan said.

Sens. Wayne Bryant, D-Camden, Bernard Kenny Jr., D-Hudson, and Joseph Coniglio, D-Bergen, legislated grants from taxpayers assets, and sent funds that were slated for property tax assistance and community development to hospitals, municipalities and universities —- entities that that employ the lawmakers over the past two years.

Duh. Can you say kickbacks?

And rigging funding bills? How many of the Trenton boys got paid off for voting for this legalized extortion of the taxpayers?

$6.2 million went to the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Rutgers University, Lawnside and the Camden Redevelopment Agency. Sen Bryant, chairman of the Senate budget committee, received salaries from the universities, and his law firm represents Lawnside and the redevelopment agency. Bryant has resigned from his post at UMDNJ, and is already under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the situation there.

Note that Sen Bryant’s brother is the mayor of Lawnside.

More than $1 million went to Hoboken, which is a client of Kenny’s law firm. Kenny also serves on the Joint Committee on Ethical Standards.

Hackensack University Medical Center, which employs Coniglio as a plumbing consultant for $5,000 per month, received a $1.1 million grant.

TRENTON — State Sen. Stephen Sweeney has released time logs outlining the work hours of a 32-year-old aide holding two jobs for him at a combined salary of $88,000 per year. “Everything has been by the book,” Sweeney said after releasing the documents last week.

Michelle Coryell, who serves as a full-time confidential assistant to Sweeney in his freeholder office, since December has served as a part-time chief of staff in Sweeney’s state legislative office.

According to the Senate Democratic Office, she receives $28,000 for her state job and $59,128 for the county position. Taxpayers fund both positions. In addition the Wenonah resident, daughter of a politically connected union chief, earns an estimated $24,000 from the county Democratic organization, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported last month.

When the story first broke, Sweeney said the arrangement was temporary. “What we have is a person who works a lot of hours,” Sweeney said. “People do work more than one job today.”

As a state senator, Sweeney himself takes home $49,000 and is paid nearly $18,000 as freeholder director in addition to his $98,360 salary as a union official.

During his 2001 Senate campaign, Sweeney campaigned against dual office-holding and agreed to donate his county salary to the United Way of Gloucester County as a compromise — a decision that placed Sweeney among the top individual contributors to the local United Way.

Coryell took over as chief of staff in December, during a period of heavy turnover among the combined legislative staff that Sweeney shares with Assemblymen John Burzichelli and Douglas Fisher.

The records, which begin Dec. 1, detail the activities of a worker routinely putting in 10-hour days and working Saturdays and Sundays in her various capacities On some days, such as Jan. 3 and Feb. 14, Coryell took a paid day off from her county post to work as legislative aide.

According to the documents provided, on Dec. 31 Coryell worked at Sweeney’s legislative office for seven hours during a county holiday.

In some weeks, the $28,000 part-time state position entailed fewer than five hours of work. Between Dec. 1 and Feb. 17, Coryell never logged more than 17 1/2 hours during any week, the time logs show.

While the position is temporary, Sweeney said there is no timeframe for Coryell’s departure. He said the legislative office was not being run properly until the restructuring in January and she would stay on until it is complete. “No one is being cheated here. No one is getting any time taken away. It’s not double-dipping,” Sweeney said.

Former state Sen. Bill Schluter, once dubbed the “Conscience of the Legislature” and a longtime advocate of government reform, said such appointments raise serious questions about government integrity. Schluter said he did not have enough information to comment on Sweeney or Coryell specifically.

But the Republican veteran of three decades said many actions by lawmakers and appointed government workers are legal but questionable. He cited employees working in both a public policy position and for a partisan organization.

“What it gets to is a culture where people look at public office and aspire to get there because you take what you can get,” said Schluter, a past chairman of the Joint Commission on Ethical Standards. “When you get right down to the bottom line, we seem to have a system that attracts people who want to game that system.”

Coryell first began working for Gloucester County in 1991 to earn tuition money when she was an undergraduate at Rowan University, according to her resume. Sweeney did not assume office until 1997.

She has worked for the Democratic Party since 1999, according to the resume. Sweeney described Coryell as an eager and competent worker looking to get ahead in government. “She wants to put in the extra time, who am I to say she can’t work on her day off? She’s entitled to be paid for the extra time,” Sweeney said. “Some people make more than others because they are talented and hard-working.”

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Bob Ingle, Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey newspapers, on politics in "The Soprano State".

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Bob IngleBob Ingle is Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey Newspapers and co-author of The New York Times' Best Seller, "The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption." Hear him Fridays at 5 p.m. on www.tommygshow.com radio. twitter.com/bobingle99 E-mail Bob

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